First death from bird flu reported in the US

A person in the US state of Louisiana has died from H5N1 bird flu, the first recorded death from the disease in the US.

This was reported by the Louisiana Department of Health.

The patient was over 65 years old and reportedly had comorbidities. He contracted H5N1 after contact with a backyard flock of birds and wild birds.

Louisiana health officials said their investigation has not found any other human cases linked to this patientʼs infection.

According to the World Health Organization, there have been about 900 human cases of bird flu worldwide since 2003, and more than half of them have died. That could mean the virus has a 50% fatality rate, making it extremely deadly, but experts donʼt think it kills half of the people it infects.

Since severe cases are more frequently reported than mild cases, mild illnesses are likely not included in the statistics.

But even if the actual mortality rate were 10 times lower — around 5% — it would still be a serious figure. For example, the mortality rate from the previous strain of Covid-19 was around 2.6%.

A recent study by scientists at the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention of the first 46 human cases of H5N1 in the US last year found that almost all of them were mild, and the infections, with the exception of one, occurred after contact with infected farm animals.

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